Keepsake (35 page)

Olivia pulled out of her daze long enough to stare at her watch: ten o'clock. It was half an hour past closing time at Run of the Mill. She looked around and blinked, trying to clear the cotton from her head, trying to focus on the reality of her night so far.

She was able to remember it perfectly well. After the debacle in her bedroom, she had actually got into her van and driven the two and a half miles to the row of shabby old warehouses, some of them empty, that lined the banks of the
Connecticut River
. She had marched into the outlet, greeted the help, taken out her stickers, and got to work. She was here, wasn't she? All in one piece? With her stickers mostly stuck? Obviously she was fine. Obviously time had passed.

The fact that she couldn't remember the two hours that she had spent in this dreary hole—that, she could attribute to the numbing monotony of marking down merchandise. She scanned the cavernous room. Yes, there it was, all around her: merchandise. Mountains of it. More bolts and remnants than she could possibly sell, more than her customers could possibly sew, in a lifetime. In ten lifetimes.

As for the customers themselves, she was fairly certain that there had been quite a few of them rummaging through the piles, but now they were nowhere to be seen.

"You closed up?"

"Um... you told me to?"

"I did, didn't I. Okay. Thank you,
Sharon
. And I'm sorry for keeping you late," she added in a dull voice. "I guess I just got carried away."

Energetic
Sharon
, Olivia's most valuable asset by far, giggled and said, "Oh, that's all right. My friends don't get off work until one-thirty. This way, I'll have one less drink to nurse while I wait for them."

They left together, Olivia, reluctantly. Her world seemed to be collapsing around her; she was afraid to go out in it anymore.

All the way home, anxiety gnawed at the pit of her stomach, making her sick. As she careened down the road under bright stars flung across a clear black sky, wave after wave of nausea washed over her. More than once she was tempted to pull over, open her door, and throw up. She was deathly ill, deathly tired.

And unprepared for the sight of Quinn sitting on the bottom step in front of her townhouse.

It was eleven at night and twenty degrees out; what was
he doing there?

Olivia had the obvious option of driving right past him and entering her house through the garage that was built into the berm on the side. But he was Quinn, and he was there, and she couldn't quite make herself reach up to press the garage door opener on her visor. Instead, she parked alongside his truck. Better to get it over with.

Quinn got to his feet as she approached; she could see that he was stiff from waiting in the cold. "Still here?" she asked unnecessarily. For once, she didn't know what to say.

"I left," he said. "I drove around. I came back."

His hands were in his pockets, his cap pulled down low, his collar flipped up against the sharp wind that hacked at them both. Huddled into himself, he said, "I have nowhere to go, Olivia; nowhere to be, except with you."

Haloed in the haze of their frozen breath, they faced off for the second time that night. Olivia's mohair muffler lifted and fell in the wind, marking time as she searched his face, looking for answers to all of her questions. What did she know about him, really? Seventeen years apart: It was half a lifetime.

"All right," she said at last, too exhausted and cold to stand there. "Come inside."

She led the way, aware that he had a key to her place
but had declined to use it. Why? Was it mere courtesy—or was there something deeper at play?

"We have to talk," she said tiredly as she slipped out of her coat and draped it across the nearest chair. "Whatever is going on with you, it's scaring me, Quinn. We have to—"

"I
know... I know," he said. He sounded deep in melancholy.

He threw his jacket over hers and surprised her by taking her into his arms.

She was too tired to resist, too tired to respond, too tired to do anything but repeat dully, "We have to talk."

"Shh," he said, holding her close and kissing her hair. "Shh. Just
... let me hold you."

His body felt cold against hers. She wanted to bundle him, warm him, make him hot tea; she wanted to slap his face.

And yet there she was, too tired to do any of them. All she could do was negotiate. "Quinn, I want some answers. Before anything else can happen, I want you to expla—"

"Shh. Let me make it up to you
... for before. Shh. I won't insult you by saying I'm sorry. The words aren't adequate for what I've done."

He let out an odd little laugh, as if he were indulging in his own private joke. And then he said in an aching voice, "I love you, Olivia. I love you so much
... so much! you're everything to me." Holding her close, he caressed the back of her hair and whispered, "I love you more with each breath I take. Please believe that. No matter what happens, please believe that."

She nearly broke down in tears.
Now
he had to tell her? Now, when she felt as drained as a pool in January? She had been waiting to hear those words from him for seventeen years. Perhaps not consciously—but somewhere buried deep in her psyche, there had always been an awareness that other men were a waste of time. Only one was a match, more than a match, for her. And now she knew, beyond a doubt, that Quinn Leary loved her.

So why wasn't she jumping with joy?

She didn't know what to say to him—he seemed to want her to say nothing—so she snuggled against him and murmured innocently, "Are you hungry for that pizza yet?"

"Nope," he said, lifting her face to his. "You?"

She wasn't queasy anymore, but: "No pizza for me."

"I've got a better idea," he said, lifting her effortlessly in his arms.

"What? Lasagna?" she asked with a tired smile.

"Not exactly," he said, headed for the stairs.

"Fisherman's Platter?"

"Keep babbling, woman; it'll make the climb easier."

"Quinn, no," she said, laughing despite her exhaustion. "You can't keep doing this! I'm too heavy!"

"Granite is heavy. You're a basket of laundry."

"You say that now, at the bottom of the stairs; what happens when we both go tumbling ass over teakettle from the top?"

"Then we'll die in one another's arms."

"You say that now, at the bottom of the stairs."

"Shh."

He carried her up and no one fell, and then he carried her into her bedroom, just as he had their first time, and laid her on the bed, just as he had their first time. On New Year's Eve they had been wild and hungry and just a little bit drunk. Tonight they were tired and sorry and just a little too sober. But what they lacked in fire, they made up for in tenderness. Quinn loved her, and she loved him, and every touch, every kiss, every caress as they made love was wrapped in that declaration, one for the other.

I love you, Quinn. I love you. When Rand wouldn't let me in his treehouse and you built me my own, I loved you for that.

I did it because I loved you, although at the time I thought it was just to spit in your brother's eye.

And when you left those bright red roses in the Maxwell House can on the table in my treehouse? I loved you for that.

You knew it was me?

Who else? Not my brother!

That time you fell out of the treehouse, my heart stopped.

My mother told me you were a hero, carrying me home. I was always too embarrassed to thank you. Thank you. I love you.

And I was always too embarrassed to thank you for defending me when Old Man Ryckhart accused me of stealing his power saw.

One of Rand's friends framed you, but I have no proof. Rand defended you, too, Quinn. You probably don't know that.

Shh. What's past is past. I love you. I love you.

They fell asleep in one another's arms, two lovers who agreed, if only for the night, to spend it in that treehouse of theirs.

****

Olivia awoke before Quinn did. It was early, but she knew that he'd be spending the morning getting Mrs. Dewsbury settled in from the hospital, and she wanted to do something lovely and domestic for him first: make breakfast. After the mortifying empty-cupboard episode on New Year's Day, Olivia had made a point of stockpiling every breakfast item she could think of. She wasn't in such great shape for throwing together a lunch, and God forbid she should have to make dinner—but she could do breakfast in style now.

She eased the comfor
ter back, leaving an exhausted-
looking Quinn quietly snoring on his side of the bed, and went downstairs to take sausages and a can of OJ out of her freezer. After starting the meat defrosting in the microwave, she made up a pitcher of the juice, which she left on the counter to breathe. After that she got the coffee going. She was thinking omelettes. How hard could they be? For some reason she was truly enjoying puttering about in her kitchen.

The reason was sleeping upstairs in her bed.

It was chilly in the house; she needed her robe. Back up the stairs she went. The robe was in her bedroom, hanging on a funky clothes tree that she'd found while cruising the
B
rimfield flea market with Eileen one fine day in May. In the glow of the hall light, she tiptoed across the room and was in the process of wrapping herself in floral flannel when the timer on the microwave sounded.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.
Not especially loud—but Quinn shot up in bed as if four different cannons had blasted. He looked disoriented, even spooked. Olivia knew the look from the day before; she had hoped never to see it again. But then he spotted her standing near the bed, and his demeanor relaxed.

It felt so very good to see that happen. She grinned and whispered, "Good morning, pizza man."

"It can't be morning," he said with a moan as he dropped back on his pillow. "I feel as if I've been shoveling snow all night."

"Then go back to
sleep." She pulled the covers over him and kissed his brow. "I'll let you know when breakfast is ready."

"Mmm." He yawned heavily and said, "Who's cooking it?"

"Hey! I am," she said, sending an accent pillow sailing over his head.

He chuckled; it was sweet music to her ears. She was on her way out to the kitchen to cook up her first storm ever when she spied something shiny on the white carpet beneath the chair over which Quinn had folded his pants.

"Huh." Like a trout after a bright, shiny lure, she swooped down on it. "Quinn? Look what I found on the floor. Is this a class ring?''

His head came up. Propping himself on his elbows, he said in a surprisingly tense voice, "Yes. It's... mine."

"But you told me you'd thrown your ring off a bridge," she said, moving toward a lamp in the hall.

"I—that was a figure of speech, that's all," he said. He threw back the covers and got out of bed.

"This isn't your ring. It couldn't possibly fit your finger—now
or
then." She stuck it under the light for a closer look.

"Jesus Christ, Liv! Do you have any concept of personal property?" he said, coming after her.

"It's from our year," she said, reading the date on the side of the stone. She began rotating the band, looking for initials. Quinn snatched the ring angrily away from her, but not before she had a chance to read them.

"O.R.B
. Owen Randall Bennett," she said with a puzzled look at Quinn.

"Oscar Reginald Baxter. Orville Raymond Bonaparte. Obadiah Rufus Blackw—"

"Very funny," she said, trying to snatch it back without success. "There were no Oscars, Orvilles, or Obadiahs in our class. This is
Rand
's ring. But
Rand
told everyone he lost it swimming at the quarry. How did
you
end up with it? Quinn?"

Her voice had been edging higher with each succeeding sentence. By the time she got to Quinn's name it sounded shrill, even to her.

He looked so determined not to tell her anything. His eyebrows were drawn together, his mouth was clamped shut, his breathing was labored. His eyes glared at her through a curtain of suspicion. Prisoners of war must look that way all the time. The rising panic she felt was balanced by rising anger, and both were overwhelmed by plunging hopes. What kind of relationship could they possibly have if he regarded her as his number-one enemy?

"Damn
you, Quinn!" she cried, hurling the words at him like dinner plates. "How can you treat me this way? It's offensive. It's insulting. It's—you said that you loved me!" she cried, because for her, it all came down to that. "I would never do this to you! I would never shut you out from something that was eating at me!"

He stood there, shirtless and in his drawstring pajama bottoms, looking more than ever like someone in shackles. Oh, how she dreaded that look, that posture.